Well for those of you that don’t know already I have made it to the Galapagos islands. I am staying on the island of San Cristobal the oldest of the archipelago and the only one with fresh water. My first impressions of this place are that it is absolutely beautiful! I am sitting at the university now and across the coble stone street from me I can see the crystal blue ocean sparkling in the sun light. I will be going swimming as soon as I finish this post. I think I am going to enjoy living on this island. One of the first signs of wild life we saw on the island where large blubbering sea lions. These fat blobs lounge on the beaches, park benches and boats all over the island. When you are swimming you have to be careful not to get to close because they will try to play with you by nipping at your fins…Because humans do not have fins it can be pretty pain full it have your arm of leg bitten by the 300 pound beast. They are cute but they make the most horrible noises its like a never ending belching party at a frat house!
Down the road a bit from the university s the Malecon (the board walk and tourist district) The board walk is pretty with little shops and cafes. I learned very quickly to not buy form the tourist shops because two blocks up from the pier I can usually find the same thing for much less. However the community uses the boardwalk too, I have seen out door concerts and movies (Finding Nemo in Spanish) that they set up for the locals to enjoy. I feel very safe here everyone is friendly and is very patient with m at I muddle my way though the language barrier. I have picked up a lot of Spanish since coming here, mostly little words and phrases but drawing pictures and flailing go a remarkably long way. I few of the locals speak English well so it is refreshing to talk to them.
Walking away from the pier, up the road two blocks and across from the giant stature of pink flamingos you will find my little house. I am living with an older couple and their daughter who is my age. The daughter speaks English fairly well and the parents do not speak English at all. It is hard to really bond with people who you cant talk with so I do not feel very close to them, I hope I can find some way to get to know them better. My family owns a small convenience store in front of the house, that I walk through every time I come home. The Daughter also owns an internet café down on the malecon (good brownies).
About a half mile from my house is the best dance club on the island Iguana Rock. On the weekend this place gets really busy and everyone dances and drinks. It is so much fun! Salsa Dancing is a big thing here and I am thankful for all the dancing I did when I was in high schoool or else I could never keep up with some of the guys. I love to dance and flirt, its great fun. So that’s a basic tour of the developed areas of this island. The rest is mostly untouched forest and mangroves.
I got here at the beginning of the month and right away we started into a new class. This time it was Botany, exploring the endemic and introduced plants of the Galapagos. I thought that it would be boring and a challenge to memorize a bunch of different plants, but it was actually pretty interesting, our professor was crazy and made the class fun. We went on a few day trips around the island to look at endemic plants and last week we went on the camping trip from hell into the highlands.
What made the camping trip so bad? We started out at a volunteer organization for the eradication of invasive plants. That was not bad at all, it was really interesting to see what they where doing and we got to help out a tiny bit too! One bad thing though was these little flies that would bite your skin and make you bleed, they also made the skin ich like crazy! After some time at jutune satcha, we whent to our camp site and set up the tents, for some reason my tent did not have a proper fly, something that will become more important later. There was a massive party back down on the coast and many of us where disappointed the have to miss it until Jenni suggested that we take call a cab to come get us and then ride back with them I the morning. So 12 of us all loaded into the back of a taxi and went to one of the biggest parties in the Galapagos. There where live bands, street food and plenty of beer! It was fun until all the creepy locals began to come out. I was dancing close to the stage when Katie tells me that there was a guy who wanted to meet me where she was with her current boy. I follow her back and land in the arms of this creep who I danced with once at Igguna and had been avoiding ever since. I gave him a few minutes of my time and then did my best to lose him again. Lucky in a crowd that size it was easy to do. At about 3am it started to rain and that was my cue to head home and get a whole 4 hours of sleep before going back up to the highlands. The rain had not quit when I woke up again, nor had the music from the party…both seemed to have gone on all night. By the time I walked the short distance from my house to the meeting place I was soaked. We got up to the camp site in time for breakfast and then we where off on a two hour hike in the pouring rain though the miconia forest…a forest f stunted trees. We crossed a dam where the island gets its fresh water, it was interesting to learn that San Cristobal is the only island with a fresh water supply. As the rain fell the terrain became slippery and several people including the professor ended up covered in mud. It was bad. Most of us where pretty punchy from the night before and that just made the hike even worse. We got back to camp soaking wet and hungry. After lunch and a change of cloths we where back out to the Galapagra, a rehab center for turtles, that was almost interesting except it turns out that turtles don’t like the rain anymore then people do. So there where not many out. Back to camp, I am out of dry clothes at this point so we all just sit in the dining hall and watch movies in Spanish until dinner. After dinner, I was exhausted and headed to my tent for bed. However, upon entering I realize there was a small leak that led to a puddle right where my blanket had been. So I attempted to sleep on the ground with the dry half of the blanket….it was pretty miserable. The next morning there was a plan to go cut Mora (invasive blackberry), but we protested so much that we just came home after looking at the 3 windmills that provide 50% of the power to the island. They where interesting, I like wind mills and its got to see a move toward alternative energy here. We arrived home at noon and I was asleep in a dry bed by 12:30..and did not wake up until dinner time.
Two days after returning home from camping we had our final for botany and then we said good bye to our professor. Its amazing how quickly time moves here. The professors become our trip leaders, tour guides and care takers when we go on feald trips. It realy puts them in a different light, I like that. Hugo was amazing and I will think of him each time I read about endemic plants of the Galapagos.